


This Tired World

by Rysler



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Betrayal, Diplomacy, Exile, F/F, Gen, Hopeful Ending, Post-Season/Series 02 Finale, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Raven and Bellamy are lovely people honestly, Stop hating Jasper guys, Survivor Guilt, not quite fluff but in this fandom it might as well be made of bunnies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-13
Updated: 2015-12-21
Packaged: 2018-05-06 14:13:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 14,542
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5420111
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rysler/pseuds/Rysler
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post S2 Finale, Clarke realizes that leaving Camp Jaha wasn't viable, and returns to face her sins.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The title is from "Stray Italian Greyhound" by Vienna Teng. Which, yes, means Lexa is a sudden burst of sunlight when Clarke has her umbrella.

Leaving camp had been a bad idea. Clarke realized it as soon as Jaha was out of sight, when she was surrounded by trees—familiar, yes, but the memories weren’t good—and night was falling. A cold wind blew. Winter was coming. They’d landed in a temperate zone. Fertile and lush, bordering the desert, but not exactly hot.

She found a clearing and she sat.

She was exhausted. Heaviness weighed on her. Her muscles ached. Her wounds burned. Her hands—they didn’t shake—but she wasn’t sure she could hold a gun anymore.

Not that she wanted to.

She tried to calculate, in her quiet times, just how many people she’d murdered. Three hundred at the drop ship. Four hundred in Mount Weather. Two hundred and fifty at TonDC. Various people, here and there, whose faces cropped in her nightmares. 

Here in the clearing, she couldn’t recall them.

“Maybe a thousand?” she asked herself. Her voice was hoarse and low. She coughed.

She had to go back to Camp Jaha, no matter how much she hated the people there. She had nowhere else to go. The woods were dangerous. Maybe she would get killed by an errant Grounder on patrol. She’d be a scar on somebody’s chest.

It was a peaceful thought. 

Thoughts of Camp Jaha, on the other hand, were tumultuous. Hot. She hated her mother and Raven for being captured, for being tortured, forcing her into genocide. Her mother should have stayed in TonDC. Maybe if Raven had died in the blast at the dam… Maybe if they were all dead, she could die too. Just lay back in the grass and close her eyes and wait for Lexa to slit her throat. 

But they weren’t dead. They were there, roaming back and forth, armed, hungry, broken. Swarming humans demanding something of her. They’d offered to kill and die for her in return.

But they hadn’t meant it. They’d fled, leaving her and the other children to fend for themselves. 

Again. 

She wanted to hate them. But she missed them. Missed Bellamy’s cold hand over hers, pulling down the lever. Missed Jasper’s last tendrils of innocence evaporating. Missed Monty’s cowardice. These things, she understood.

She missed Lexa, who had pulled her into another world and made her something else. Made her justified. She’d loved marching beside her, giving orders, tasting real power. But it had all vanished. Power was a mirage.

There was only survival.

She closed her eyes, hugging her knees, and waited for her sins to kill her.

It got darker and colder. She put her hands in her sleeves. She shivered. She remembered burned faces and skeletons and Lexa’s warm kiss and Raven’s warm hug. 

She waited for Bellamy or her mother to come and yell at her, cajole her, condemn her for selfishness and for being utterly pathetic. 

She cried.

The gray light of pre-dawn came and she hadn’t died. So she got up, slowly, muscles heating up again, limbering. She checked her gun. She rubbed her hands together. She went home.

 

***

 

 

The Jaha gate was guarded by two men. They recognized her as she left the tree-line, and went to open the gate.

She raised her hand and shook her head. 

They stopped and watched her, not speaking. Looking neither happy nor sad to see her. She walked along the fence, sturdy and reinforced, far better than they’d had at the drop ship, bless the Ark and its technology. Still in sight of the guards, she came to a wooden post, still fresh and cedar-smelling, stripped of bark and choked with wire. 

She sat down and leaned back against it, letting her eyes shut against the sunlight.

 

***

 

When the sun was directly overhead, a guard approached with food and a water bottle.

She frowned at him.

He was hesitant. “Your mother sent these. In case you were hungry.”

“I am,” she said.

He nodded, shifted again, and then put the covered plate and bottle beside her.

“Thank you,” she said.

He almost smiled, and then went back to the gate.

She lifted the cover off the plate. Venison strips—Mm, irradiated forest creatures—and nuts that reminded her of the drop-ship. She ate a couple. Tasted like home. She ate the venison, too, then settled back to stare at nothing.

As the afternoon light shifted to a sinking golden, she went into the forest to void herself, long ago having learned which leaves to use. The Ark—Camp Jaha—Had better facilities. Maybe that would tempt her inside before anything else did.

At dusk, the gate opened, and Jasper crept toward her.

“Jasper,” she said.

“Hi.”

He sat down beside her, cross-legged. He was crying. She wanted to touch him, but he was already shaking his head. Wringing his hands. 

Was she more sorry about Maya than about the rest of the thousand dead?

She was. She didn’t know how to feel about that. She tried to feel nothing.

“I loved her,” Jasper said through gulping breaths. “I loved—“ He turned to Clarke.

Her gaze was there to meet him.

“You killed Finn. Bellamy told me. You killed Finn to save me. So you could march on the mountain. Come back for me like I knew you would. My fucking hero.”

She didn’t move, just held onto his eyes, wide and wet.

“And then—And then you killed Maya. To save me again. You took Finn from Raven, you took Maya from me, you almost got Octavia killed—And I still… owe you my life.”

“I’m sorry,” she said.

He laughed, short and choked. He looked down and plucked at the dirt. “I was their leader in there. I… murdered people. With my hands. With my mind. And the whole time, I was trying to do what you would do.”

She swallowed.

“How can I be more like Clarke,” he said.

Her name was a condemnation on his lips. He laughed again. “Remember one of my first jobs at the drop ship? The first way Jasper gets to be useful. I made bullets.”

“I remember,” she said.

He scrubbed at his face. “You think you took something from me, Clarke. But you didn’t.”

She reached for him, then, covering his nervous hands with hers. 

He sniffled. “I can’t talk to anyone about this. About how I’m glad I’m alive.”

“I know,” she said.

He squeezed her hands and turned into her. She caught him in a hug. They shifted, until he lay beside her with his head in her lap. Still crying, but silently, tears trickling off his nose to nourish the earth beneath. 

She stroked his shoulder. 

“Are you glad to be alive, too, Clarke?” he asked.

“Yes.”

 

***

 

Long past midnight, when the guards had changed twice, Clarke and Jasper got up, by mutual accord, and went inside Camp Jaha. There they parted, and Clarke went to her mother’s quarters, and crawled into bed with her. She let her mother hold her while she cried, though she didn’t sleep. She no longer felt disgusting, unworthy. She just felt broken. Blank. Hollow. 

Her mother tried to talk to her, an incessant low rumble of problem-solving and cruel attempts at comfort and moral reasoning. Clarke tuned it all out. In the morning she showered and had breakfast like a civilized person, and then she went in search of Raven.

Not that Raven was hard to find. Holed up in the electronics room like usual. Jasper wasn’t there. That was a relief. Clarke sat on a cot. 

“It’s weird, you know?” Raven said, not looking at Clarke as she fiddled with a circuit board.

“I don’t know. What’s weird?”

“The smell.” 

Clarke raised an eyebrow. “The smell?”

“Yeah.” Raven turned around and leaned back against her table. “Like, when I got to the drop ship, everything stank. Body odor and sweat and blood—so much blood all the time—and shit and refuse and forest. I mean, I guess you could say we all smelled like mud and animal, if you wanted to make it simple.”

“And now?” Clarke asked.

“Camp Jaha smells, well, not clean exactly, but cleaner. Fresh. With its own air and soap and less mud and clean clothes. It’s starting to smell not-smelly again. Sterile. It reminds me of space.”

“Is that a good thing or a bad thing?”

“I don’t know.” Raven curled her lips. “What do you think?”

Clarke inhaled deeply, trying to catch the scent of what Raven was talking about. Her exhale came as a sob, and her eyes watered before she could do anything. She covered her mouth to hold herself in, and didn’t look at Raven.

“I know,” Raven said. “I should hate you. What you did to Finn, and running off with Lexa, and never listening to any of us, and just… giving orders like a fucking bitch all the fucking time. Not taking no for an answer.”

“Yeah?” Clarke said. 

“But I can’t. Because you saved my life. You drank poison.”

“You punched me in the face. Can we call it even?”

“We’ll never—“ Raven stopped.

Clarke risked a look at her, and found Raven smiling.

“Yeah, we’re even. Until next time.”

Clarke nodded.

Raven’s face fell. “You’re not here to make me do anything, are you?”

“What are you doing?”

“We’re trying to find other pieces of the Ark, working our communications grid and stuff. We’re using Mount Weather’s antenna, but we don’t know what’s out there. Or if the other Arks are even bothering after so much jamming.”

Clarke nodded. “Sounds good.”

“You look like shit.”

“But at least I don’t smell bad.” Clarke offered a smile.

“Thank goodness. Do you want to get lunch or something?”

Clarke shook her head. “Can I just hang out here?”

“Sure.”

Raven resumed her probably very important, highly technical work that looked like aimless fiddling. Clarke watched her from the cot, eventually lying down on the cot. Eventually closing her eyes and listening to Raven’s movements, grunts, murmurs. Beyond that was the hiss of the air systems, the zip of electricity. It felt like home again. Like she could go back. 

She let her fists unclench. She let her jaw loosen. She let herself fall asleep. 

 

***

 

 

“So,” Abby said, finding Clarke in the medical bay, doing inventory.

Clarke looked up. Marcus was behind Abby, smiling expectantly.

Abby’s eyes were wide with expectation. “We wanted to talk to you.”

“About what?” Dread filled Clarke. Her mother lately only said “No,” or implied she was a moral disappointment. Neither was anything she wanted to talk about.

“About joining the Council,” Abby said. She made a “ta da” motion with her hands.

Marcus folded his arms.

“About joining the Council? I don’t—I can’t—Bellamy would be better.”

“We asked Bellamy, too.”

“You asked Bellamy?”

“Yes. He’s considering it. He wants to talk to you first. Of course.” There it was. The slight edge of condemnation in Abby’s voice.

Clarke nodded slowly. “Shouldn’t there be elections? Or something?”

“This is a time of change,” Marcus said. “We’ll hold elections in six months, after the winter. When our population is stabilized.” 

Clarke didn’t say anything. Abby squeezed her shoulder.

Clarke put down her gauze. “You think the Grounders aren’t a threat anymore.”

“We hope not. We’re hoping that our alliance with Lexa will stand,” Abby said.

Marcus continued, “We’d like to open trade with the Grounders. Not too many weapons, of course, but technology. Maybe a shared occupation of Mount Weather, or establishing territorial boundaries, exchanging food. We need horses. We want to start a breeding program—“

“Stop,” Clarke said, raising her hand. “Just stop.”

Abby and Marcus closed their mouths. They looked steadily at Clarke.

“This is a lot to take in.”

“I know,” Abby said. “But we want what’s best for everyone.”

“And you’ve been best for everyone, so far,” Marcus said.

“What about Jaha?”

“Jaha’s gone. I don’t think he’s coming back. And believe me, we miss him,” Marcus said.

“I’ll consider it. I’ll talk to Bellamy. And if we’re going to do this, we need to re-establish contact with the Grounders. Octavia and Lincoln are the obvious choices. They may even want to stay—“

“Already giving orders,” Marcus said, smiling.

“Well, I have to do something,” Clarke said.

“Your mother’s daughter.” It was praise from Marcus’s lips, but from his eyes, Clarke knew better.

“Let’s meet tonight, after dinner,” Abby said.

Clarke nodded.

“Some folks have gone hunting. Wish us a merry feast,” Marcus said. He turned, and Abby followed, back into the muddy world. 

Clarke picked up a half-empty box of gauze. She’d lost count.

 

***

 

 

Clarke was interrupted again, this time by Raven running in with a walkie-talkie.

“More survivors?” Clarke asked.

Raven shook her head. “Patrol.” She handed the walkie-talkie to Clarke.

Clarke pressed the talk button. “It’s Clarke.”

Static hissed, and then David’s voice. “It’s Miller. We found…Is this a secure channel?”

Raven nodded. “I locked up engineering.”

“It’s just me, Miller,” Clarke said.

“We’re about three hours from Camp Jaha. We found the Grounder Commander.” A pause. “Lexa.”

Clarke’s blood ran cold. Her hand trembled and she gripped the walkie-talkie tighter.

Raven refused to meet her eyes.

Miller continued without waiting for a reply. “She’s injured. Badly. I didn’t kill her.” A beat. “I wouldn’t kill her without your permission.”

No. Because I control life and death. She hit the button. “Should we come to you?”

“Yes. We’ll make camp. Clarke… Come quickly. She’s alone. But I don’t know how things will stay that way.”

“What has she said?” Clarke asked.

“What do you expect? She’ll only talk to you.”

“Thanks, Miller.” She clicked off. “Do we know where they are?” she asked Raven.

Raven grinned broadly. “Yes we do.”

“Okay. Shit.” Clarke handed back the walkie-talkie. “Shit, shit, shit. Get Octavia.”

Raven saluted. 

Clarke ignored her, and headed out of medical.

She went straight to Marcus, who was sitting in the mess hall, reading a tome of Bacchylides. He stood up when he saw her.

“It’s Lexa,” she said. “She’s hurt.”

“Where is she?” Marcus’ concern was obvious. He knew Lexa better than anyone else at camp. They were friends. He’d support the mission.

“About three hours out. Miller’s with her. We need to see what’s going on.”

“I agree,” Marcus said. 

“I”ll take a med-kit and a gurney, just in case.”

“You’re not going alone.”

“With Octavia?” she tried.

“And Monroe.”

“Okay. Bellamy?”

“We need him here. And he needs to rest.”

“You need to rest” remained unspoken.

She turned to leave.

“Clarke,” he said, halting her.

She looked over her shoulder.

“We need peace,” he said.

“I know. Don’t worry. I’m not petty.”

She strode out.

She wasn’t petty, but the conversations she was about to have with Lexa in her head were going to be remarkable and full of bile. Her head was ready. Her heart… shuddered at the thought of seeing Lexa again. She had three hours to quash it. 

Octavia met her at the gate, eyes full of hate. That would help. 

Raven was there too, with the walkie-talkie and a circuit board with little metal clamps. 

“Raven, find Monroe. She’s coming with us.”

“Okay.” Raven handed the walkie-talkie to Octavia and then headed toward the dorms.

“Our mission is to make peace,” Clarke said. 

“With a missile? Or an army?” Octavia asked bitterly.

“Maybe with our own two fists.” Clarke clenched hers.

Monroe came running toward them with her machine gun. “I’m ready.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lexa wtf!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is only about six parts. I intend to post it all before January 21, obviously. A few days between chapters. This one early in honor of the trailer!
> 
> THE VERY INSPIRATIONAL TRAILER.

Even with the med pack, food, and camping gear, the walk wasn't arduous. Clarke felt safer without the mountain men and the acid fog. The path they followed was blazingly clear, well-marked with tree tags and machete swipes, in familiar woods. The GPS Raven had rigged, which, Raven explained, had a fourth of the satellites necessary still in the sky, beeped confidently at times, and went dark at other times. But it was fine. 

It helped, too, that Miller had sent two men back to meet them. They joined up two hours into the walk, mercifully silent on their opinions of heda and Clarke both. 

Octavia was also quiet. Guarded and wary—the girl too often told that she couldn't do things, too many problems that had to be solved by violence—she didn't trust the woods the way Clarke did. Octavia's people were out there, probably, watching. Judging. 

Caught between two worlds. Octavia didn't know where she belonged, either. That comforted Clarke.

Firelight shone up ahead. 

"We're almost there," Karl said. 

Clarke nodded. 

Octavia put her hand on the hilt of her blade. Monroe checked that her 97 was in safety position.

Karl called out, "If that billy goat won't pull."

"Papa's gonna buy you a cart and bull," came Miller's voice.

They stepped into a clearing, manned by two more men, including Miller. He stepped forward. 

"She's in the tent," he said.

Clarke removed her pack and lifted up the tent flap. She glanced behind at Octavia.

"Fis op. Frag op. I don't care," Octavia said.

"So glad you're here," Clarke said, and ducked into the tent.

The smell of blood hit her first. She tried to stop breathing, and took in Lexa, face-down on a cot, her back covered lightly by a sheet. Otherwise she was nude from the waist up. Her boots and pants remained. Clarke allowed herself a moment of jealousy for new pants. Fabric that wasn't a hundred years worn. Tailored. 

They didn't even look dirty.

"Heda kom Skaikru, are you looking at my backside?" Lexa said, unmoving, her eyes closed.

"What I can see of it." Clarke set down the pack and knelt beside Lexa. "Can I lift the sheet?"

Lexa gave a small shrug, and winced. 

Clarke first donned a pair of latex gloves—also a century old, and clean—and pulled back the sheet. Twelve lines were gashed into Lexa's back. Three deep, the others shallow. One was a thin, pink line. 

"Do you have any other injuries?" Clarke asked.

"No." Then, "I have not been able to keep down food. I think I have been poisoned."

"How long ago?"

"Three days."

"Then you're probably not going to die from it. These don't even look infected. You've been keeping them clean."

"Covered. That is all," Lexa said.

One of the Arkers had duct-taped the two worst wounds, but blood had made the silver tape unstick. 

"This is going to hurt," Clarke said.

"I am not afraid, Clarke."

Clarke swallowed the feeling of her name falling from Lexa's lips, and pulled back the tape. Lexa winced.

"I can't imagine how much blood you've lost. Or how your spine isn't severed."

Lexa inhaled sharply, the sound so much like a sob Clarke abandoned her mutilated back and leaned toward her face. "Lexa?"

"My left leg has little feeling. In the toes, nothing more."

"How did you walk so far from—where were you?"

"I didn't make it to Polis. The clan representatives met me close to the mountain. When I forbade the combined armies from fighting Maun-de—the mountain—they in their frustration chose a new leader."

"They can do that?"

"They cannot," Lexa said.

Clarke moved back to Lexa's flesh. "So each clan… Including your own?"

"That is the one that hurts the least. But they chose Indra as their representative. She is too full of the fight. It was a poor decision."

"Why didn't they kill you?"

"The Sky People showed them a new way."

"Us?"

"Kane."

The name chilled Clarke. She swallowed, nodding. Then realized Lexa couldn't see her, and vocalized, "How?"

"It was a hundred years in the design, Clarke. You were simply… the impetus."

"I see."

"I'm certain you do."

"Where were you going?"

"To you, Clarke."

Clarke closed her eyes. "I could just kill you."

"It would not be smart. You are smart."

"Don't forget weak."

Lexa's expression, despite her closed eyes, etched into exasperation. "You conquered the mountain."

"All by my fucking self," Clarke said.

Lexa said nothing.

"Okay. Okay. Sit up." Clarke pulled out medical tape.

"Are you not going to stitch my wounds?"

"No. There's a better way. Back at the Ark. But I need to tape up your back so that we can travel."

"I can walk," Lexa said.

"I know," Clarke said.

"You are not going to argue?" Lexa sat up, and finally looked at Clarke, eyes opening into a curious expression.

Clarke shook her head and nearly smiled. "Sit."

Lexa sat upright, straight-backed, though it must be painful, and looked at the ceiling. Clarke tried not to see her breasts, small and unblemished, making Lexa vulnerable. Exposed. Despite Clarke's bravado, she had never seen a woman up close quite like this. She'd spent her nights convincing herself her desire for Lexa was one born of common purpose, of intellectual curiosity, that it wasn't the physical desire that she'd felt for Finn—whose mind she had loved, too. Whose mind had shattered. 

Unbidden tears stung her eyes. She had to clear her throat before calling.

"Octavia."

Octavia ducked into the tent, her expression flat and unchanging despite Lexa's nudity. "Heda, heya," she said.

"No," Lexa said. "I am not heda anymore." 

At this, Octavia's eyes widened, but she said nothing.

"Take a position at the head of the cot," Clarke said, "So we can wrap this around her." It would have been more difficult to do by herself. 

"Is she coming with us?" Octavia asked, dutifully accepting medical tape and passing it around.

"Yes," Clarke said.

"Aren't you afraid we'll torture you?" Octavia asked. "Clarke herself ordered Lincoln's torture. For Trikru secrets."

"And yet Lincoln is your strongest ally. I know Clarke's power," Lexa said.

"Something else died there in the bloody mud, and was buried in the blizzard," Clarke said. 

Lexa frowned.

Clarke wished Bellamy was there. But Octavia answered for him. "After the world ended, when we had all of its knowledge but none of its substance, we studied our role in genocides. Endlessly. Convinced that our humanity had caused its own destruction."

"We have no such process," Lexa said. "But we also do not know, and do not seek, the knowledge of why our lives are as they are."

"It doesn't matter. We clearly didn't learn anything," Clarke said.

"You learned medicine," Octavia argued. "And Lexa taught us war."

Clarke pulled a grey shirt from her bag, its fabric faded and soft from a thousand washings. "Here."

Lexa took it, but Clarke had to help put it on, between gasps and winces and stopping to let moments of pain subsided. Octavia cast her eyes downward. 

"Do we march?" Lexa asked.

"Not yet. First we need to get food and water into you."

"I told you—"

"I don't care if you throw it all up again. You're going to try."

Lexa narrowed her eyes.

Octavia was the first among them to smile. "Don't you wish you were dead?" 

"Or she was," Clarke and Lexa both answered.

They left the tent to stand around the fire, among the men that guarded them with guns. 

"Clarke," Lexa said, when they were standing side by side.

Clarke glanced at her. 

"No one in our history knows who caused the earth's destruction. Do you?"

"No," Clarke said.

"Maybe not everything is your fault."

***

They put Lexa in handcuffs before they marched her into Camp Jaha, pausing long enough for people to get a good look, and then continuing into medical. Abby appeared. Octavia and Monroe disappeared. Kane and Bellamy were meeting together elsewhere about the new "Lexa problem." 

"Politics can wait," Clarke said. "She needs surgery."

"I don't," Lexa said.

"Shut up." Clarke released the handcuffs and then took Lexa's wrists in her hands, massaging. 

Lexa smiled. 

"What?"

Lexa glanced at Abby before responding, "That is the same in our language. It must be a universal command."

Abby smiled at that, politely, worriedly, and then jabbed a needle into Lexa's shoulder, through the thin shirt, and Lexa slowly sank onto a bed, sitting.

Clarke gently lifted up the shirt and pulled it over Lexa's head, feeling entitled since she'd put it on in the first place. They couldn't cut the fabric off. It was too valuable to waste. Then Clarke guided Lexa face-down again, tilting her nearly-unconscious head so she could breathe, and nodded at her mother.

"They did this to her," Abby said, cutting off the tape. 

"Yeah."

"Why?"

"She got Churchilled. The war is over. I ended it. I ended Lexa, too."

"Clarke, I don't think you can take credit for the internal politics of a people you know nothing about."

"That's what she said."

"What are we going to do with her?" Abby asked. Clarke met her eyes and read there the open honesty of the question. There was a girl in their midst now. No more monster than Clarke. No more enemy than Lincoln. 

"I don't know," Clarke said.

***

"The question is, what do the Grounders want us to do with her?" Kane asked. 

He, Abby, Bellamy, and Clarke were sitting at a square table. Lexa was under guard in Clarke's quarters. Better than being chained to a wall. And she was being protected, as much as imprisoned, from people who'd marched with her on the mountain. Who'd been at her side and had been betrayed.

Clarke looked at Kane with disgust.

Kane wasn't fazed. "Our alliance should be with them. An alliance with her means nothing."

"We don't know the situation with the Grounders," Bellamy said. "We have to find out."

"We do," Abby agreed. 

"So let's send Octavia and Lincoln," Bellamy suggested.

"How do we know they won't go native?" Kane asked.

Bellamy's turn to look disgusted. "My sister belongs with me."

"I can't go," Clarke said.

"Why not?" Kane asked. 

Abby looked relieved.

"Because Lexa's not going to trust anyone else enough to give up information about the Grounders."

"Fair point," Kane said. "I'll go. Bellamy, you should go too. You, if I understand correctly, helped free the Grounders from cages. Even made friends with some of them. You should be as much of a hero as Clarke, in their eyes."

Clarke gritted her teeth.

Bellamy gazed at the ceiling. "Great." 

***

Clarke brought food and moonshine to her room. Lexa had been sitting at her desk. Clarke sat on the bed. 

“Hungry?” Clarke asked.

“Your food is disgusting. Let me take your men to hunt.”

“Hey. We invented acorn bread. Try it.”

Lexa sighed, but accepted a slice. She bit into it. “What is the—“ She chewed. “Taste.”

“Artificial butter. Isn’t it amazing?”

“The milk of an animal?”

“Sort of. Don’t ask.”

Lexa swallowed, glanced at the bread, then took another bite. “Even if it is made of shit, it is better than your past offerings.”

“Thanks a lot.” Clarke took a swig of moonshine from a canteen. “What have you been doing?”

“Reading. Trying to learn.” Lexa pointed to the computer display.

Clarke squinted. “You’re literally reading the dictionary.”

“Where would you start?”

“We have an entire literacy program for kids. I’ll set it up tomorrow.”

“I am not a kid,” Lexa said.

“You sort of are. Why are you here?”

“I was exiled—“

“No, I mean, why are you here. In my room. Lexa—“ Clarke started. 

Lexa moved from the chair to the bed. She looked disarming in civilian clothes—practically pajamas—just another girl Clarke would know from class and dances and mayhem before she’d been arrested. Her heart ached for times lost and left behind. 

“I’m here because of you,” Lexa said.

“Me?”

Lexa cupped Clarke’s neck, and drew her into a kiss.

Clarke let the kiss envelop her. Isn’t this what she had wanted? Had craved since their last kiss. She’d thought they would have plenty of time. Win the war, get some therapy, try something new. But it hadn’t gone that way. All she had left from Lexa was the promise of a kiss. A promise betrayed—

“Lexa,” Clarke said, pushing Lexa back.

Lexa didn’t fight her, just watched warily.

“How do I know you’re not a spy?”

“A spy, Clarke?”

“None of those wounds are mortal. They were given to you by your friends. How do I know you’re not just here to steal technology, map our areas, and open the gate for the invasion?”

“We don’t want to kill you.”

“I killed 300 of your warriors.”

“The queen of the Ice Nation killed Costia, and she made the second lightest mark on my back, when she exiled me.”

Clarke swallowed. 

“You’re all I can think about, Clarke.”

“Please. I know you don’t operate that way.”

Lexa exhaled. She pulled the band off her ponytail, and her hair came free. It had been at the nape of her neck and Clarke hadn’t noticed, not with the blood and the squabbling and the march in the darkness. Lexa’s hair was short. It barely touched her shoulders.

Clarke reached for it instinctively. “Lexa. Your braid.” She ran her fingers through Lexa’s hair, not caring that it brought them closer until they couldn’t see each other anymore.

“Does it matter?” Lexa asked.

“No. Kane and Bellamy are going to your clan to find out the truth. Kane thinks we should share our technology freely anyway—not that everyone agrees with him. So no, it doesn’t matter. Not in any constructive way.”

“Clarke—“

Clarke moved to the chair. Away from Lexa’s heat. Away from Lexa’s hands. “Sleep, Lexa. I’ll take first watch.”

Lexa nodded. She got up and pulled back the covers on Clarke’s bed, and then slipped underneath. She closed her eyes, facing Clarke, available to Clarke’s gaze.

Clarke began scanning through documents on her monitor. But Earth’s entire collective knowledge wasn’t going to explain Lexa to her. She eventually turned back around and put her feet on the bed, near Lexa’s thigh, and leaned back in the chair. Sleeping in Lexa’s presence seemed as easy as sleeping near Raven. Clarke didn’t care that she needed them. She allowed herself to be weak. It was time.

Sometimes her mom was right.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hurt/comfort!!111! More angsty conversations with everybody.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've removed the violence warning, as I didn't write any. Story is now complete! It'll be all posted before Christmas.

Marcus hefted his backpack and dubiously studied the tracker Raven had given him.

Lexa watched him for a moment from across the yard. Then she approached him.

He smiled when he saw her. “We’ll make peace,” he said. 

“This is important to you.” 

She had been there a few days, mostly guarded. But now they let her roam free to help with the planning. At least during the day. At night Clarke guarded her, stony and distant.

“Yes.” He looked off into the distance, beyond the fence. “Very.”

“And yet, you are not heda.”

His smile grew. “I tried once. I wanted to be Chancellor because I was sure I could do a better job. That the decisions my people were making without me would lead to their deaths.” He turned to her then, to hold her eyes. “Power corrupts. The things Clarke has done—the things you have done—pale by comparison. I know you wouldn’t agree. But everything I do now, I do to make up for my past.”

“You seek redemption.”

“Yes.” 

“Even in death?” she asked.

He nodded. “Especially in death. It is not my time, maybe. Maybe I need to make peace. What Finn did—I would have gladly done.”

“You were not guilty of the crime,” she said.

“Yes I was.” He exhaled. “I feel like you are one of the few people who really understands what life is like. That it is terrible.”

She said nothing.

He went on. “Clarke’s breaking. You will break, too, heda. And maybe you’ll come out the other side and be the person your people need. Or maybe you’ll die. Or maybe you’ll go mad.”

Her smile was pinched. “And which happened to you, again?”

He chuckled.

Lincoln came then, carrying a spear, with a pistol strapped to his thigh. He looked more uncomfortable in Skikru clothes than Octavia looked in Trikru, but he was formidable. He nodded to Lexa, but did not call her heda.

Marcus clapped Lincoln on the shoulder. Then he turned a last time to Lexa. “A word of warning.”

She gave him her attention.

“You care for Clarke. We love her very much. The kids especially. Her mother, too.”

Lexa frowned, but kept her gaze on his face, which was somber.

“I’m not sure she loves anyone back. Not anymore. Not what she’s become.”

“You have trusted her with your life. You would not again?”

“Yes,” said Lincoln.

“Maybe,” said Marcus. “But I might not trust her with yours.”

With that, he walked away, leaving Lexa to turn to the yard, where men were fighting. She took a deep breath, and went to see where she could be useful. 

***

Fighting was how she was useful, of course. She and Octavia regarded each other around a ring drawn in the dirt. Octavia looked furious. Her brother and her lover had gone with Marcus, and she had been left behind. For her safety, no doubt. 

She wasn’t happy. “I am no one’s little sister,” she said.

Even Lexa knew that wasn’t true. Bellamy had helped Clarke destroy the mountain for her. But Lexa was patient. 

“You are the best of them,” she said.

Octavia’s eyes widened. Lexa moved in easy and pushed her to the ground. 

“Don’t be fooled by flattery.”

Octavia’s expression hardened. Lexa felt a pang of guilt. Should she be taking what was left of Octavia’s heart? She thought of Indra, so blind a warrior that she had wanted to kill the Sky People on sight. And Gustus, so blind a man he would rather die than make peace.

Lexa stepped back.

Octavia scrambled to her feet. She had sensed a change. _Good_. 

“What is it?” Octavia asked.

“Maybe we should be doing something else.”

“Like what? Look, there are a lot of civilians here. People who can’t fight. We have to protect them.”

Lexa looked down.

Octavia sighed. “Fine, let’s take a break. You’re sweating.” She moved closer and put her hand on Lexa’s face.

Lexa jerked away. “How dare you—“

“You’re burning up,” Octavia said. “Let’s get you to Abby.”

“I don’t need ‘Abby.’”

“Tough shit. Because we need you.” Octavia didn’t touch her again, but crowded her. “Move it!”

Lexa let herself be herded into the medical bay. There was no one there.

Octavia picked up a walkie-talkie on a counter. “Abby? Clarke? There’s a patient.”

Static hissed, then Abby’s voice, “On my way.”

“Sit,” Octavia said.

Lexa sat.

Octavia took a post by the door, ignoring her.

***

Clarke was the first to arrive, skidding inside, breathless, her eyes only for Lexa. “What is it?”

“She’s got a fever,” Octavia said.

Lexa snorted.

“Where does it hurt?” Clarke stalked up to Lexa. “Your back?”

“No,” Lexa said.

“Her back is perfect,” Abby said, coming inside. “I did it myself.”

“Octavia, can you wait outside?” Clarke asked.

Octavia scowled.

“Guard us,” Clarke said.

Octavia slunk outside, walkie-talkie in hand.

“Where does it hurt, Lexa? Don’t be cute,” Clarke said.

Lexa narrowed her eyes. “All over.”

“I’m going to touch you, okay?” Abby asked, hovering.

Lexa nodded assent.

Abby cupped her face, gentler than Octavia. Or Nyko. Or Clarke. Abby brushed back her hair, studied her forehead, and then took her wrist. 

“Thready,” Abby said.

“I do not feel weak,” Lexa said.

“Cold?” Clarke asked.

Sweat seemed to pour from her. Lexa shook her head.

“We’ll have to do some blood work,” Abby said. 

“What do you think it is?” Clarke asked.

“It could be anything. Do your people get sick? Like, a common cold? Virus?”

Lexa nodded. “Yes. But rarely with fever.”

Abby looked over her shoulder at Clarke. “What about the kids?”

“No. Poisonings and infections, but nothing airborne.”

Abby sat down on the bed next to Lexa, uncomfortably close, though her attention was on Clarke. “We could be passing diseases back and forth like crazy. Who knows what kind of radioactive germs have flourished in a hundred years.”

“What could we have brought from space, though?” Clarke asked.

“Anything. Viruses we’ve adapted to. Bacteria. Things we’ve genetically modified to keep us alive.”

Clarke closed her eyes.

“This could be nothing. Or this could be a plague,” Abby said. “We can’t give her antibiotics until we know what we’re dealing with.”

Abby got up to get vials.

Lexa watched her. “Clarke will take the blood.”

“Fine,” Abby said. “Then you’ll have to watch her, Clarke.”

“I’m not her babysitter. I’m on the Council now, aren’t I?”

“And interrogating our guest is your primary duty right now.”

Clarke rolled her eyes.

Lexa thought of Marcus’ words. _I’m not sure she loves anyone_.

Abby gave Clarke three vials. “She’ll be weak after this. Feed her.”

“Water her too? Like Archibald?”

“Archibald?” Lexa inquired.

“My rat,” Clarke said. She yanked on Lexa’s arm and began wrapping tubing around it. 

It hurt. 

“You had rats in space?”

Abby smiled. “There are rats everywhere.”

“We experimented on most of them,” Clarke said.

Lexa furrowed her brow.

Clarke slid a needle into her forearm and blood began to flow outward. “ _Jus drein jus daun_.”

“You are not funny,” Lexa said.

Abby ruffled Clarke’s hair.

Clarke was already unwrapping the tubing. “Here, mom.” Then, “I don’t think we can let a heda die. Even one in exile.”

“We won’t let anyone die,” Abby said. 

Clarke hugged herself, looking down.

“I didn’t mean it like that,” Abby said. 

Clarke ignored her.

Abby met Lexa’s eyes, and then turned for another part of the alcove.

Lexa cleared her throat. “Is she punishing you? Or are you punishing her?”

“Do you remember your mother, Lexa?” Clarke asked.

“I will not speak of it now.”

“Fine.” Clarke took Lexa’s hand. “Let’s go.”

“Where?”

“I know where to start the interrogation.”

***

Monty was talking a mile a minute. “We have all the maps. At least, from our scans from the Ark. And the, um, Mount Weather maps, which I downloaded. Those are fascinating, Commander, they mark your clans, territories, a time-graph of each battle, each treaty—Anyway. We don’t have paper. So the maps are just… here, in this computer. But not much use in the field. And we don’t have the tablets to go around. But maybe the Grounders—I mean, Trikru, sorry—Have paper. And Marcus can negotiate for that, and we can print maps, and share them, and—“

Lexa lifted her hand and Monty fell silent. And looked slightly afraid.

“I don’t understand a word of that,” Lexa said. “How am I to be of assistance?”

Monty grinned. “See. I figured that out, at least.” He tapped something into a handheld device. A three-dimensional map sprang into being on the central table. Mountain peaks and valleys and trees. Mount Weather, Camp Jaha, several other military installations, TonDC, and a couple of roads between them showed.

“This is my world?” Lexa asked. She gazed at the map from her seated position, where Clarke had planted her and threatened to tie her up.

“I think so. A lot of the Ark information is a century out of date. We thought nobody was alive, so…”

“What’s this?” Lexa asked, at the edge of the map.

“The desert. And that’s a solar panel farm. That we could see from space. But it stopped transmitting energy, um, twenty years after the, um, bad thing happened.”

“The bad thing happened?” Clarke asked.

Monty blushed. “What do you call it?” he asked Lexa. “In your lore?”

“No,” Clarke said. “That’s not our job here. We need to focus on the maps.”

“Right. What are we looking for?” Monty rubbed the back of his head.

“More Arks.”

“We have the location of every impact point—The one I think we should target is here.” He pointed west past Mount Weather.”

“We do not go west,” Lexa said.

Monty frowned at her.

“What about the other sites?” Clarke asked.

“Well, I discounted the ones that landed in the ocean…” He looked down studiously at his map.

“Okay. Hopefully we can set up communications. Until then, tell us every landmark you know,” Clarke said. She pulled a chair up to the table and sat Lexa down in it.

“I will start with the minefields,” Lexa said.

Monty blanched. “Good call.”

***

Lexa looked dubiously at the shower tube. 

“Don’t worry, you’re not going in there,” Clarke said. 

“I can bathe myself.”

“You can’t even stand, Lexa,” Clarke said.

It was true. Lexa was seated on the covered toilet, shivering with cold. Clarke had filled a basin with hot water—a smooth, newly carved wooden basin, and heated water from a spaceship, an odd contrast—Lexa nearly smiled.

Clarke was soaking a rag in the basin. Next to it was a gel-pack. 

“You need to get undressed.” Clarke said. But made no move to help her.

“Here? In front of you?” Lexa asked.

“Would you rather it be in front of someone else?” Clarke said.

Lexa considered her options, and finally let out a petulant, “I’m cold.”

Clarke’s face softened. “I know. This will help. I promise.”

Clarke of the Sky People kept her promises. Even when Lexa didn’t. She pulled off her shirt. Her breasts were bound.

“Pants,” Clarke said.

Lexa held Clarke’s gaze as she slipped them off, kicking them away.

Clarke knelt to help Lexa with her socks.

“I have… people who do that. This is uncomfortable,” Lexa said.

“No kidding.” 

Lexa removed her own—well, the Sky People’s—underwear, and let Clarke unbind her breasts. At one point, she might have enjoyed this. But today it was awkward and she was shuddering with cold and Clarke seemed more like a threat than a friend.

What she had always been.

If they’d killed all the Sky People, Mount Weather would still be there. Thousands more of her people would die.

She looked away.

Clarke opened the gel and put it in her palms. “This is going to be cold.”

Lexa said nothing.

Clarke started with her shoulders, rubbing the gel onto Lexa’s skin, cold and sticky. 

“Lexa…” Clarke started.

“Yes, Clarke.”

“When your people exiled you, did you want to die?”

Not the question Lexa was expecting with Clarke’s fingers tracing her breasts. 

“No,” she said. “I desired to kill them all.”

Clarke nodded.

“You?”

“You asked me what I wanted to do, when the battle was over.”

“And you said ‘Nothing.’”

“Right. Because I wanted it to be over. All over. Finn, TonDC, the bomb… But it’s not over.”

“No,” Lexa said.

Clarke took Lexa’s hand and placed gel in it. “Everywhere.”

Lexa took her meaning and began washing.

Clarke took a powder and worked it into Lexa’s hair. This, at last, felt good. Lexa rolled her head back, letting Clarke’s fingers scrub and scrape and massage. Washing herself at the same time—there was erotic meaning if she sought it and she was torn. Surely Clarke didn’t—

“You’re torturing me,” Lexa decided to confess, and knew her answer at Clarke’s smirk.

Her hair did feel strangely cleaner. Clarke took the warm rag and began at her shoulders again. The heat made the rest of her body, the parts Clarke wasn’t touching, shudder with cold. This was the true torture. The cloth tracing lines of fire down her chest, over her stomach, down her legs. Pain following in its wake. 

Lexa closed her eyes and gritted her teeth.

“I’m sorry,” Clarke said. “But if you’re going to sweat all night…” She got up, and tilted Lexa’s chin back. Lexa opened her eyes and met Clarke’s. 

Clarke washed her face, almost tenderly.

“Clarke.”

Clarke turned away. “Do your business in here, then change into these.” She tapped the clean, worn clothes folded on a counter. Then she walked out, leaving Lexa inside the tiny bathroom, shivering so hard again she could barely dress.

***

When she entered Clarke’s bedroom, Clarke quickly slipped out, presumably to do the same activities. 

A second cot had been brought in, mashed up against Clarke’s. The blankets were turned down and Lexa got into bed. Teeth chattering. Hands like ice. She closed her eyes and burrowed, but the blankets were thin.

“Hey,” Clarke said, and then Lexa felt Clarke’s weight beside her.

“I am fine,” Lexa said.

“Yeah, I see that. I’m sorry. We’re space-faring people. Temperature control and blankets for winter were not high on our priority list. Even with those layers, it’ll be hard.”

“I dislike being sick,” Lexa said.

Clarke slipped one arm under Lexa’s head, and the other around her waist. Her warmth, at least, shielded her from some of the cold. Lexa sighed back into her, not caring what it meant.

Only trying to stay alive.

Clarke accepted her, and they lay together in silence.

***

When Lexa’s shivering stopped and she began to feel overly warm instead, she twisted into a sitting position, shed her fleece sweater, and lay down facing Clarke, her hand over Clarke’s hip this time, the thin cotton shirt between them.

Clarke was awake, watching her, with luminous black eyes and a wary expression.

“In the mountain,” Lexa began, and Clarke stiffened into rock. Impenetrable. “In the mountain, you freed Anya. Even though she ordered the extermination of your people.”

“I needed her,” Clarke said. “I needed her so I could stay alive.”

Lexa closed her eyes. She and Clarke smelled the same. Like the gel they’d used to bathe, and new sweat. “If I had not betrayed you at the mountain, I would have, instead, helped you exterminate every mountain man, woman, and child in there.”

“I know,” Clarke said.

“But you did it yourself.”

“I acted with my heart, and not my head.”

“And now,” Lexa said, ignoring the sentiment, “Would you bed me in order to learn my secrets?”

“No. Not like that.”

“Then—“

“You’re like no one I’ve ever met, Lexa. There is no one among the Sky People like you.”

“It is the same. For me.”

“I know. But there’s too much between us. There always was.” 

Lexa moved her hand to Clarke’s cheek. 

Clarke met her gaze. “We couldn’t build an alliance based on our friendship. We thought we were strong enough, but we weren’t.”

“I have been freed from that burden, Clarke. The war is over.”

Clarke pressed her forehead to Lexa’s. “I tried looking for you in the woods. I wandered and—“

“They would have killed you if they had found you.”

“I know. And I didn’t want to die.” Clarke shifted so that her nose brushed Lexa’s. “Not without seeing you again.”

“Why?”

Clarke kissed her. Lips to feverish lips, quick and soft. Then she said, “Go to sleep, Lexa.”

Lexa closed her eyes, but didn’t move away from Clarke’s heat, even though she felt like she was on fire.


	4. Chapter 4

Bellamy was screaming. 

Marcus woke thinking they were being attacked. By Grounders or vultures, he wasn’t sure. There was only Bellamy on the other side of the fire, thrashing in his sleep. Marcus scrambled to him.

“Bellamy!” He grabbed Bellamy’s shoulders, and when that didn’t work, slapped his face. “Bellamy!”

Bellamy gasped. His eyes flew open.

“What did you see?” Marcus asked.

“My sister was burning. The radiation was melting her to ash. Octavia.”

Bellamy’s eyes were widened to the whites.

“Relax,” Marcus said. “Breathe.”

Bellamy shut his eyes again. “It wasn’t real?”

“No. Octavia is alive. She’s safe.”

“What about all the other Octavias. The grounder Octavias. The mountain Octavias.”

“We’ll do what we can,” Marcus said.

“That’s not good enough.” Bellamy was nearly breathless, panting, lying on his back.

“We’re only men, Bellamy. We’ll do what we can.”

“I think I pissed myself.” Bellamy opened his eyes, looked upward. “Stars. I know all their names.”

“Fucking kids. You’re just fucking kids.” Marcus sat at Bellamy’s side. 

“You sent us here to die,” Bellamy said.

“We sent you here to save humanity.”

Bellamy laughed. “I shot the Chancellor. I broke Raven’s radio. I nearly killed us. All of humanity.”

“We pardoned you.”

Bellamy rolled his head and looked at Marcus. “I don’t feel pardoned.”

Marcus exhaled. “I wish my mother was here. She would know what to do.”

“Me too.” Bellamy squirmed out of his blankets and went to shed his pants. “But you floated her.”

Marcus turned toward the fire.

Bellamy asked. “Do you feel pardoned?”

“No.”

Bellamy chuckled. “Well. Misery loves company.”

***

Lexa murmured in her sleep. “No, no, no, no…” 

She’d rolled away from Clarke and stripped off her pants and socks, nearly naked, burning with fever.

Clarke barely heard her. “Lexa.”

“I can’t stop.”

“Lexa?” Clarke reached for her, but she was too far away. 

“I’m sorry, Clarke.”

The words chilled Clarke to the bone. She sat up and pounded on Lexa’s back. “Wake up!”

Lexa jolted at the touch, falling off the cot, trying to rise to her feet, getting caught in the sheets, falling again, scrambling like a wild animal in a trap. 

“Heda, no!”

Lexa stopped and looked around her. Then she slowly disengaged herself from the sheets.

“Are you all right?” Clarke asked.

“I was stabbing you,” Lexa said. “I was stabbing you at the pole where Finn—My people were cheering. Gustus held your hair back, hoping I would slit your throat. But I was reaching for your heart instead.”

“Did you enjoy that?” Clarke asked.

“No.”

“I guess that’s something.”

“Each time I stabbed you, I felt the knife in my gut instead. I was going to bleed to death with you. It was so loud. Everyone laughing.”

Clarke thought of Murphy hanging from a tree. Of torturing Lincoln. “We’re all savages.”

Lexa glanced around the dark room. “It is dawn.”

“How can you tell?”

A thud came at their door. And then as an afterthought, a door chime.

“What?” Clarke asked, loud enough to carry through the door.

Octavia’s voice came through the speaker. “There are Grounders at the gate.”

“Trikru?” Lexa asked.

“No. You’d better come see. Both of you.”

*** 

Abby and Octavia met them near the gate. Clarke glanced outside. Three Grounders stood. One only had one arm. One had a half-melted face, and one looked all right but walked with a pronounced limp. 

“Open the gate,” Abby said.

“I don’t think—“ Lexa started.

“You don’t think we can defend ourselves against them?” Clarke snarled.

“They are outcasts,” Lexa said.

The gate swung open and the men stood there silently, all staring at Lexa, Abby waved them in. “We have food. Medical supplies. Come in.”

Clarke studied them. “Radiation does horrible things to people. Funny that I have sympathy for them, but never think of the billions who died.”

“They died a long time ago,” Lexa murmured.

The one-armed man spoke in Trigedasleng. 

Octavia translated, putting up a hand to stop Lexa from doing so.

“He says they heard heda was here. That she had joined the Sky People.”

Octavia replied in the affirmative and the man continued.

“The Sky People cured the Reapers, who hunt their kind.”

Lexa nodded.

“They, um, seek… justice?” Octavia asked.

“Mercy,” Lexa replied.

“They seek mercy at the hands of the Skaikru and the Commander.”

“As if that was a thing,” Clarke said.

“Clarke,” her mother admonished.

Abby turned to Octavia. “Ask them what they have to offer.”

Octavia asked, and then listened.

“Um, rabbit. Deer. Uh…”

“They have snares,” Lexa said. “And they have knowledge for the winter. Usually they stay in caves guarded from, and by, the Reapers, but they have ventured out. Because of Clarke.”

“Why wouldn’t I kill them like the others?” Clarke asked.

“Because you didn’t. And I’m with you,” Lexa said.

Abby gestured to Jackson. “Check them over, then take them to the mess.”

“I’ll go with them,” Octavia said.

Abby nodded.

As the five moved away, Clarke said, “I guess it was a good thing Octavia stayed behind, then.”

“I’m sure she’d rather be with Lincoln. But we all make sacrifices.”

Clarke turned back to the fence.

“Lexa, we need to know who these people are.”

“They are the unwanted. From birth, some. From injury, others. If they cannot handle a trade, we exile them to the Reapers. It is more merciful than…”

“Than murdering them yourselves?”

“Survival is key, Clarke. They are weak.”

“They are your people. When we fell from the sky, we tried to keep everyone alive.”

“And were you successful?” Lexa asked.

“You bastard.” Clarke lunged at her. 

Lexa caught her arms, whirling her around.

“Clarke! Girls. Please.” Abby grabbed them both by the shoulder. “How many are there, Lexa?”

“I don’t know. I have not often seen them.”

“How many do you exile each year?”

Lexa wrenched away from Clarke. “Dozens.”

Clarke balled her fists. 

“Well, exiles are welcome here,” Abby said.

“Is someone going to come after them?” Clarke asked.

“No. They are forgotten,” Lexa said.

Clarke strode away, her anger feeling better than anything had in a while.

***

Lexa bent over with her hands on her knees.

“How’s the fever?” Abby asked.

“Clarke says that it’s not dangerous.”

“That’s good. Means your internal organs aren’t turning to rot.”

“Those of us who survived… were stronger,” Lexa said.

“Clarke tells me there were twelve clans, which you united.”

“Yes.” Lexa straightened again.

“There were twelve space stations in orbit that came together, also.”

“Unity Day.”

“Yes. How did you know?”

“Anya and Clarke tried to make peace on that day. But people died.”

“Don’t let Clarke pretend that there was no conflict before the grounders. We taught her history.”

“You condemn her. Yet, Clarke says you slew her father.”

“Yes.” Abby looked down.

“My father slew my mother.”

“For politics?”

“No. For drink.”

Abby reached out to Lexa but let her hand drop. “I’m sorry.”

Lexa shrugged. “It was long after I was taken to be a warrior.”

“Do you miss her?”

“Yes.”

Abby touched Lexa’s shoulder. “I don’t condemn Clarke. I worry.”

Lexa glanced around. Soldiers training. People exercising. Others preparing food. “Do your people not sit around a fire and tell stories of past victories?”

“We haven’t in a long time. The Ark was dying for years.”

“This wailing is becoming tedious.”

“So noted. We’ll call for a feast. We have honored guests. When you’re well. Maybe we’ll have news from Marcus then.”

“And something decent to eat,” Lexa said.

*** 

Clarke and Lexa looked at the two cots, side by side.

“We should split them up,” Clarke said.

“No. We cannot.”

“Why not?”

“I am still ill. You are having nightmares. It is more, um, reasonable that we stay together.”

“I think you mean ‘practical,’” Clarke said. 

Lexa wrinkled her nose.

Clarke almost smiled, and quickly turned away to shed her clothes.

“Let me help,” Lexa said, settling her hands onto Clarke’s back.

“Don’t.” Clarke stiffened. “Go shower. I trust you can stand now.”

Footsteps retreated.

Clarke finished disrobing and then slid under her sheets. Sleeping nude felt like defying the world. Instead of armor and shoes, ready to run at any moment. This was her home, this was her bed, she had a warrior beside her who—

She flung an arm over her face and sighed. She had a warrior who would die for her, between her and the door.

Lexa came back in, wearing shorts and a shirt. She frowned at Clarke.

“Would you die for me?” Clarke asked.

“I have nothing else to do,” Lexa said, and smiled.

Clarke nodded, and Lexa got into bed. Clarke picked up a tablet and brought up a screen. “Have you read ‘A Tale of Two Cities’?” 

“Yes,” Lexa said.

“Really?”

“In Polis, there is a library filled with books. Hundreds of thousands. We find them all over, and we bring them. The ones that did not burn. We find them in buildings filled with small skeletons. That is one where we have many copies.”

Clarke swallowed. “It’s about terrible people who do good things.”

“Is that you and me?”

“I don’t know. I think I’m tired of being Death.”

Lexa rolled onto her side. “You are angry with me because of the Unwanted.”

“No.” Clarke turned to face her. “You probably did the right thing. Which is insufferable.”

Lexa reached past Clarke for the tablet. She rolled back onto her back and held it up. 

“It was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven… Stop laughing, Clarke.”

Clarke settled her head onto Lexa’s chest, opposite of their positions the night before. “Carry on, Dickens.”

Lexa rolled her eyes, but continued.

 ***

Marcus smiled patiently as the TonDC gate opened, trying not to inhale the smell of burned flesh and death. 

Indra greeted them, nodding to Bellamy and then stepping forward to pull back the hood that covered Lincoln’s face. She scowled at him, and then stepped away.

“Are you in charge?” Marcus asked politely.

“No. We are ruled by a Council. We were warned of your approach. They’re waiting.”

“Thank you. We wish to maintain our peace—“

“Save it,” Indra said.

Marcus glanced at Bellamy, and the three walked past the crater, and around to where new tents stood. Indra ushered them in and Marcus found twelve people seated in a half-circle, with the biggest man he’d ever seen sitting in the center.

“I am Rasor of the Mountain Clan.” 

“I am Marcus of the Ark—Sky—Um, people. This is Bellamy Blake, who conquered the mountain with Clarke.”

“You are not the Sky heda,” Rasor said.

“No, I’m second-in-command.” Marcus said.

Bellamy shifted his feet.

Lincoln stared straight ahead.

“And why is he here?” Rasor gestured to Lincoln.

“To translate. We wish to maintain peace—“

“Yes. If you stay within your walls, we will not attack,” Rasor said.

“We’d like a perimeter of twenty miles for hunting and fora—“

Rasor raised his hand. “Five miles.”

“Ten.”

“It is done,” Rasor said.

“And we would like to trade with you.”

“What do you offer?”

Lincoln nodded at Indra, who brought in an Arker holding a small metal case. He knelt on the ground and opened it.

“We have guns, of course.” He gestured to two handguns in the case. “As well as gems, and electronics—“

“We have no use for electronics. What do you wish from us?”

“Blankets. And horses.”

Razor laughed. The council joined him.

“Horses for a few trinkets. You came all this way for nothing.”

“One more thing,” Marcus said. “And I’m glad the whole council is here for this. The Ark wishes to formally open diplomatic communications with you…” He waited while Lincoln translated. “So we brought this.” 

He pulled a satellite phone from his jacket. “Hope this works. We’ll need to do it outside.”

Rasor nodded.

The Arkers left the tent, followed by Rasor and only two other Council members, and Indra. 

Bellamy set the phone on the ground, then flipped it on. Lights blinked. 

“The Ark brought most of the satellites together, and crashed them, but there’s an ancient communications grid still in low orbit. Only a few were lost in the descent. This tries to connect to that first, and then if nothing’s available, it sends a radio signal Mount Weather can here. The mountains, though…” Bellamy sighed, and picked up the receiver. “Bellamy to Raven, come in.”

He hit a button and static hissed. Then Raven’s voice. “Loud and clear, Bellamy.”

“You and I can talk, Rasor, before any bloodshed needs to happen. This should help us not repeat the misunderstandings of the past.”

“So I can speak with you?”

“Yes,” Marcus said.

“Why would I want to,” Rasor said, and laughed. “Get out of TonDC. Wait! First, tell me if the Commander lives.”

“Clarke defeated her in hand-to-hand combat,” Marcus said.

“You lie. But it is a good one.” Rasor laughed again. “Now leave TonDC and never return, Sky People.”

The two Council members murmured, watching Marcus. But Marcus and his men simply turned and followed Indra along the crater’s edge.

“You have done well,” Indra said.

“I don’t think so,” Marcus said.

“You are still alive.”

***

An hour out of TonDC, Marcus heard a horse neigh. He halted the team, and out of the twilight came a warrior, in full blue paint, leading two horses.

“We could not spare a stallion,” he said. “But both are pregnant. They will be missed. It will be assumed that you stole them.”

He said this all in Trigedasleng, which Lincoln translated.

“Thank you,” Marcus said, and handed the warrior the case with the guns.

“Good trade,” the man said.

The horses were laden down with blankets, flint, and axes.

“Yes,” Marcus said. 

“Heda she dead?” the warrior tried in broken English.

“She lives. With us.”

The warrior nodded. 

“Tell her that her people wait for her,” Lincoln translated for him.

“May we meet again,” Marcus said.

“Mebi oso na hit choda op nodotaim,” the warrior said, and disappeared into the falling darkness.

“Civil war is coming,” Lincoln said.

“Do you think they’ll wait until after winter?”

“Yes. But it will come then.”

“Great,” Bellamy said. “Fucking great.”

One of the mares nuzzled his shoulder. 

Marcus clapped the other one, and they went on.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Feasting! Dancing! Drinking! Tropes!
> 
> Props to anyone who recognizes Lexa's dance.

By the time of the feast, they'd collected a total of six outcast grounders, including one who had news of Jaha. Marcus, Bellamy, and Lincoln returned. Their hunting success had quadrupled, and the cave clan, as Lexa was calling them, taught them how to salt and cure meat for the winter. 

Two fucking weeks without an attack. Clarke kept count. 

They'd strung the Ark with lights, and taught Lexa how to shoot a long gun and a pistol, and began to mark their territory.

Monty was obsessed with agriculture. He didn't care that the leaves had turned golden and the nights cold.

The one-eyed outcast dubbed Aristotle taught them metal-working, people made jewelry for the feast.

Marcus didn't think it was a good idea. The rest of the Council overruled him.

No one made contact on the radio. 

Marcus gave Lexa the title of commander-in-exile. She stayed with Clarke. They'd progressed to what Monroe derisively described as "snuggling," hands roaming over clothes, kisses becoming heated. Clarke didn't know what the fuck they were doing, but she didn’t want to discuss it, and Lexa didn't push.

The feast started at nightfall and featured a boar on a spit, corn-based moonshine, and music.

The music made Clarke reflect on the art they'd found at Mount Weather, some of which was hanging in the Ark now. She sat with Lexa by the exile's bonfire, uninterested in joining the Hundred or the Council. Except for Miller, adults avoided her altogether. 

Lexa's fever had passed, and Abby had named the virus after her. Lexalococcus. Clarke cheerfully called her a plague.

"Do your people have art?" She asked.

"Of course," Lexa said. "Stories to celebrate our triumph. Statues in our honor. It is important."

“So you have propaganda. What about art that makes fun of you? Taunts you?"

"Death," Lexa said.

Clarke sighed.

"Would not you do the same?"

"We wouldn’t. It helps our people release steam. And we aren't always right, as leaders." Funny how that hurt to say, but not as bad as she thought it should.

"As a leader, even when I am wrong, I must be right."

Clarke thought of arguing with Bellamy. Thought of her parents. "It doesn't work that way."

"Clearly," Lexa said, bitterness in her tone as she cast her gaze downward.

"Hey. We're alive. Let's celebrate."

Clarke went so far to nudge Lexa’s shoulder, and Lexa smiled. The sight was always breathtaking.

Lincoln was already dancing. He swayed with Raven in his arms. Octavia chased Monroe in circles. Bellamy jigged by himself, and blushed when Clarke caught his eye.

"You wish to dance, Clarke of the Sky People?"

"Maybe I should, uh, dance with Aristotle. You know, intra-tribal unity."

"I am Outcast too, Clarke." Lexa stood and took Clarke's hand.

Clarke stumbled along dutifully, out of the firelight, where only starlight shone. The drums pounded. Clarke searched for her mother, found her dancing with Marcus. They exchanged knowing, disgusted looks, and smiled.

Then Clarke turned her attention to Lexa. "What are we doing?"

“We are healing."

Clarke sighed.

"Let me show you the dance of my people," Lexa said.

"Please."

Lexa raised her hands skyward--spaceward--and clasped them into a point. Then on the drumbeats, spread them, wide, then bent at the elbow, then to the side. She stepped left, then right, then circled on four drumbeats, seeming to shimmer to the guitar, but Clarke wasn't sure, then stopped with her hands clasped overhead again.

"You try."

"That?"

"Yes, Clarke."

Clarke blushed. She turned again, seeking the crowd. Octavia had Lincoln now. They stepped around each other, laughing. Clarke tried to remember the Unity dance, where Octavia had been caught. She hadn't known the Blakes then. Her parents and Wells were everything.

She faced Lexa. "Okay." She clasped her hands in a point, and them brought them down.

Lexa laughed. "To the music." She took Clarke's hands and brought them up again. 

In civilian clothes, even with the leather bracers she wore, and the dagger at her hip, she was astonishingly small, and strained to turn Clarke in an appropriate circle. 

Clarke caught her hips. "I can hear the drums just fine."

"And yet you dance like an elephant."

“I don’t think you mind.”

Lexa’s eyes were luminous in the firelight. Clarke stepped closer and kissed her. The music pounded loud around them.

Tongue demanded entry. Lips dueled and fought and conquered. Clarke tugged until Lexa pressed against her, legs and hips and breasts. 

"Before, when you kissed me at TonDC, I could only feel death. I want to feel alive again, Lexa." Clarke breathed into Lexa's hair.

A shot went off. 

Clarke shoved Lexa to the ground, covering her. More shots followed, a rat-tat-tat of machine gun fire.

"Clarke," Lexa said, pushing at her.

"Who's out there?"

"Clarke. no one. They're celebrating."

Clarke squeezed her eyes shut. The guns went off like fireworks. Laughter followed. Whoops of joy. Drumbeats. Behind her eyelids, she only saw fire. Grounders burning. Raven being drilled. Stabbing Finn. 

"Stop," she cried.

Someone was pulling her off of Lexa. 

"Hey." 

Clarke shuddered as Abby hugged her and stood her up. 

“No one's attacking,” Abby said.

Clarke shook herself. "I think I need a drink."

"Jasper's handing them out by the east fence."

Clarke took off running.

Close to the commotion, Bellamy caught Abby's eye and ran after her.

Lexa managed to stand up. 

Abby exhaled. “On the Ark, we saw this sometimes. Kids would experience flashbacks when we floated a parent. Sometimes in domestic situations--but never like this. This war."

"We have a name for it. _Sheeshok_. It can affect any warrior. It is not a weakness. They are not punished."

Abby nodded. "Everyone needs Clarke to be okay. But she’s not. I think you’re the only one who really understands her burdens."

"But you do not approve."

"You told her to let everyone at TonDC die."

"I would again."

"I know. But go. She needs you now."

***

Lexa approached as Clarke washed her mouth out with moonshine. There was vomit in the dirt. Bellamy had been sent away by Clarke’s trembling gesture. 

"Clarke," Lexa said. "Your fight is over."

Clarke shook her head. "What we know about this hellscape doesn't even scratch the surface. I have to be ready to fight. Marcus showed me the mountain’s map of the clans. The odds are not in your favor, Lexa.”

“Not tonight."

"They were attacking--"

"They were not. There is a perimeter ten miles out. And five. We will hear them coming."

Clarke nodded and took another swallow of moonshine.

“This is an exposed position. Let us go inside.” Lexa offered her hand once again.

Clarke took it.

***

 

Clarke's heart beat wildly as they entered her room. Stress or anticipation, she didn't debate it. Not with Lexa's gaze, full and searching, on her face. She caught Lexa by the shoulders and kissed her. Kissed her hard, making demands, whirling until Lexa's back pressed the door.

This was happening too fast. Clarke drew away, her hands still on Lexa's shoulders. Shaking. 

"Say something." She shook Lexa.

"We do not have to do this, Clarke."

"Not that." 

Clarke kissed the corner of Lexa's mouth, and then cupped her neck and gently drew her down to kiss her forehead. 

Lexa caught Clarke's waist and spun them. Clarke's back hit the door as Lexa's lips found her throat. Tiny nips of pain soothed by strokes of heat. Clarke groaned. 

She hadn't known, before Lexa kissed her, what she really wanted from Lexa. Only that she wanted _something_. Lexa had shown her and it scared her.

Finn had loved her too much. Her mother, maybe not enough. Lexa moved in between them—different, unyielding, promising that she would not break, regardless of whether Clarke loved her back. 

Promising that Clarke would not break if she lost everything.

That gaping void rose in her. 

She pushed Lexa. "Wait." She tried to swallow the emptiness. Her body was alive, churning with need, trying to save her. 

_Just survive_.

Lexa stood away from her, but didn't stop looking at her like Clarke was water and she was on fire.

Clarke swallowed again. “I told you before. There's too much between us."

Lexa took Clarke's hand. Traced the palm with her fingertips, waking her up. “Your hands are clean. There's nothing between us, Clarke."

Clarke looked down at their clasped hands. Her body screamed for Lexa. Her heart was promising no pain. In fact her heart was already tangled around Lexa's, beating together, sometimes faintly. Sometimes like earthquakes. 

The radio call had filled her with fear and longing, not loathing and despair. 

She tugged Lexa's hand and they were kissing again. Lexa's lips parted, inviting her in, and Clarke followed. She tasted feasting and moonshine and Camp Jaha. Battles and knives slipped away. Lexa's hand cupped her breast and it was scary and it was exciting. 

If she couldn't have happiness, if she didn't deserve it—or if it never existed—she could at least have pleasure. 

If her father had never died, if she'd never been exiled in Grounder territory, never had to build a bomb… if she and Lexa had met in space, at a Unity dance, or in the gym… 

She pulled off her shirt to feel Lexa's fingers on her naked skin, rough and strong. 

If Lexa had never lost her soldiers to the Sky People, or her civilians to the Mountain Men, maybe they would have grown up together in a village, looking up at space and seeing only starlight.

Tears burned her cheeks as Lexa's lips touched her skin.

"Wait," she said.

Lexa lingered a moment before straightening. "I do not want to wait."

Clarke glanced at the cots. Inadequate. She was embarrassed. Even though she got to sleep with electricity and blankets and mattresses. If she was at TonDC they'd sleep on furs again, sleek against her, and Lexa might worry the same thing.

She laughed. She laughed because Lexa was wearing Arker clothes, but that did nothing to her strength. 

Clarke's laugh broke into a giggle and she tried to cover her mouth. 

Lexa tilted her head, expression curious.

"I feel like I'm growing new skin," Clarke said.

"Like a snake?”

Clarke nodded. "I keep thinking it should hurt. But it doesn't hurt. When I did this… the last time, I was a child. But now I'm something else."

"I know what you are."

"It's just that—" Clarke stopped talking as Lexa dropped her shirt and drew down her pants.

Nude except for her binding, she moved back to Clarke. "Help me?"

Wordlessly, Clarke unraveled her. High-quality stretching wraps instead of the leather and cotton Lexa used to use. It left her unblemished. The twelve faint marks of the knife wounds would be removed in the next day or so. Clarke traced them.

Then she let the fabric fall to the floor and took Lexa in her arms. Her own breasts pressed into Lexa's back. Lexa felt small against her. Just a girl. Not so terrifying. Clarke felt her world come into balance. She ran her hands down Lexa's body. She kissed Lexa's shoulder.

Lexa chuckled. "I am pleased I finally got you to shut up."

She whispered in Lexa's ear, "Right. Except I think this is where I tell you that you're beautiful."

 _This is the part where I tell you I love you_.

Lexa rolled her head back. "Am I?"

"And courageous, and strong, and very, very funny."

"I am not funny."

Clarke shed the rest of her clothes, and then fell back on the bed, pulling Lexa over her. "Let's agree to disagree."

Lexa's body covered Clarke's. She cupped Clarke's cheek, brushing her thumb against the skin. 

Clarke twisted, letting Lexa settle, until she felt the weight like a compression bandage. A shield. 

Lexa rubbed Clarke's chin. "Let us agree to stop speaking."

"I don't think I can—" Clarke's words were muffled by Lexa's mouth descending onto hers. 

Lexa's hand slipped between their tight bodies and found Clarke. The first stroke soothed her need, the second set it exponentially ablaze. Her body, finally freed of her mind, responded. She mimicked Lexa, finding her wet and wanting, already sinking onto Clarke's fingers. They moved together in the ancient rhythm of survival and rebirth. Lexa tore her mouth from Clarke's and panted against her ear. Clarke breathed short and fast. Loud and heavy. She forgot everything she was outside of Lexa, except for the fleeting hope of Lexa doing the same.

She felt boundless, painless. If she had known what Lexa could do to her, what absolution was offered, she would have broken earlier. She would have fallen at Lexa's feet. Instead, she sought Lexa's lips again, tasting hair, an earlobe, finally a tongue sliding against hers. She let Lexa bring her to orgasm. She screamed her release as if it might kill her. As if it mattered. 

When she was spent, Lexa up on her hips, still moving against fingers inside of her, rocking, looking down at Clarke.

Clarke was barely dexterous enough to hold onto Lexa's waist for the ride. She gave Lexa her complete attention, taking in every gasp, every curled and bitten lip, every fluttering of eyelids. It occurred to her, as Lexa came, silent and shivering against her, that Lexa needed this too. 

Needed _her_.

She disengaged and let Lexa sag into her embrace, sweaty and peaceful. 

"I love you," she mouthed silently against Lexa’s head. She couldn't remember the last time she'd said it aloud to anyone. 

Lexa murmured something.

"What exactly do you see in me, again?" Clarke asked.

"It is simply my duty to indoctrinate you into the pleasures of knowing a woman."

Clarke tugged her hair.

Lexa shifted, obliging to meet Clarke's eyes. "When I got to know you, after you proved yourself in battle… It was like the commander's spirit was in you too. Something chose you, Clarke."

“Um. My people don't really believe in all that. After what you've seen, how can you?"

"You do not believe in nothing." Lexa's gaze narrowed.

Clarke thought of the prayers she'd learned, by rote, as she dreamed of the ground. As she watched Earth spin beneath her, verdant and alive.

"As the Earth will one day provide for us, so we provide for the Earth. I guess it has."

"As you have," Lexa said.

Clarke ran her fingers up Lexa's arm. She seemed impossibly soft, for a warrior. She wanted to see Lexa's scars. She wanted to taste Lexa's skin. 

"I changed my mind," Clarke said.

Lexa's expression turned droll. 

"Less talking," Clarke said. "More of this."

Lexa agreed.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The denouement. The end of the beginning. Not every wound is healed.

Clarke dozed, burying her nose in Lexa's shoulder, soothed by the hum of machines. 

Machines that beeped. She rolled over, groaning, and reached for a tablet. 

_Council meeting in thirty minutes_. "Great."

She had to get to the bathroom, and she was sure she stank of sex. "I wonder who's guarding us this morning," she mumbled.

Lexa snuggled closer. "Perhaps, Clarke, now that you have had your way with me, you needn't keep me locked away."

Clarke froze. She considered her words as a familiar fear squeezed her heart again. 

So much for last night.

She pursed her lips and said, "Lexa, I don't keep you in here because you're my sex slave. It's because people want to kill you. You left their children at the mountain to die."

“Then I cannot stay here and endanger you.” Lexa sat up, naked, facing away from Clarke, staring at the door. 

Clarke wanted to protest, wanted to integrate Lexa into Arker society—whatever that was—start a new life for her. But she kept silent.

Clarke shifted and reached up to touch Lexa's cheek. "You don't have to leave today."

"No?" Lexa asked, with the hint of a smile.

Clarke shook her head.

Lexa kissed Clarke briefly, and then began marking a trail down Clarke's body with soft presses her lips, strong presses of her fingers. When she moved between Clarke's legs, she looked up to Clarke. 

"I think you are wrong, Clarke."

"I'm not surprised," Clarke said.

Lexa's smile grew. "I am your sex slave." She bent her mouth to Clarke.

Clarke grabbed the side of the cot, a moan torn from her by Lexa's touch. "Yeah, okay," she managed, shuddering as Lexa's tongue swiped across. When a finger slipped into her, she rolled her head from side to side. "No, I take it back, you're wrong." 

Lexa nuzzled her thigh, as if listening, as the finger slipped in and out.

"I'm definitely the helpless one," Clarke breathed. 

"Good," Lexa said, and went to her task.

Clarke writhed, groaning. Maybe this is all Lexa had wanted since the beginning, her on her back, powerless, stripped naked. That was completely fine with her. At Lexa’s stroking tongue, an ache moved through Clarke all the way to her toes. She settled her head on Lexa's head and gave in completely.

She felt alive.

***

The council managed not to tease Clarke, but she was sure the smile on her face gave her away. Bellamy's smile had returned, too, shaky but real.

Abby put on a more serious expression. "We need to talk about justice."

Bellamy and Kane exchanged glances.

"What do you mean?" Clarke asked. "For who?"

"In general. The feast last night was a big wake-up call. It was chaotic. Things got broken. People got hurt. We're starting to have restlessness. Lawlessness. I'm seeing people in the infirmary who've been attacked by their bedmates. There's been some vandalism, I think tied to Monty's still."

"Well, we can't float anyone," Clarke said.

"Clarke," Abby admonished.

Clarke looked at her hands. They had been so clean last night.

"What can we do?" Bellamy asked.

“I want you to talk to the kids. See what will make them feel safe, but not stifled. I recognize that… Earth is wild… but we need to build something new. Something that isn't the Ark. Something that isn't the drop ship. Remind them that they've been pardoned. The past is behind them."

Clarke thought about Bellamy's dead mother and her dead father. They would never be left behind. Not while she was still there to carry them.

"I agree," Kane said.

"What about the survivors? On the other pieces of the Ark?" Clarke asked. 

"We can't—" Kane started, but Abby lifted her hand.

"We need to prepare for winter. Maybe if we can reach them on the radio, we can find them in the spring."

"That'll be too late," Clarke said.

"Clarke. Your people are _here_ , and they need you."

Bellamy said, "You're right. We did try lawlessness. But strong leadership helped more. And a common purpose."

"What common purpose?" Kane asked.

"To rebuild the Earth. Starting with Camp Jaha."

"That's not my purpose," Clarke said. 

She didn't know why she was crying. Her hands weren't trembling. Her chest was settled and cool. But her chin was wet with tears. “My purpose is to keep us safe. The civil war—“

"We don't need a general anymore," Abby said. 

"Not right now, anyway," Kane said. 

“The hundred will follow me,” Clarke said.

“They will. But is that the right thing? Haven’t Raven and your friends been through enough without being led into battle again?”

“I don’t know. You said the Grounders weren't willing to work with us. Who knows if they'll come after our technology?" Bellamy asked.

"It isn't their way," Clarke said. "It's as alien to them as they are to us."

“It’s our people we need to worry about. I have three complaints filed through the old Ark system. I have two assaults. I have a big pool of urine by the secondary gate. You aren't ready for this, Clarke."

Clarke sighed and put her head in her hand. "What about Lexa?"

"Lexa's not a priority," Kane said. "We'll keep her safe. She's dead, remember?"

"Right. She's dead." Clarke closed her eyes.

Abby asked Bellamy about the armory. He started talking, his voice low and calm, while Clarke tried not to shatter apart, not fall to dust on the floor, where Abby would sweep her up according to the new cleaning policy.

Clarke stood up. "I need to go talk to Monty." 

She ran.

***

Monty's small work alcove was filled with maps. They hung from the ceiling, made stains on the floor. They were painted on white cloth.

"Where did you get these?" Clarke asked, fingering the edge of the world.

Monty bent over a computer. "The mountain."

"Oh."

“Where’s Bellamy?” Monty asked.

“The Council meeting,” Clarke said.

“Ugh,” Raven said. “Poor bastard.”

Lexa, who’d come at Clarke’s summons, stepped closer to the biggest map, the one that showed the entire east coast. "What are these numbers?"

"Places where we have recent aerial photos from the Ark, or where we can get a satellite feed. Like, the feeds are maybe every few days, and I'm just approximating. Does anyone have a sextant?" 

He laughed at his own joke. 

Raven stood opposite Lexa, trying not to look at her. "Get to the good part, Monty."

"The horses had their babies?" he said.

Clarke grinned. "Who gets to name them?"

"There is a ceremony," interjected Lexa.

"Of course there is."

"I'm waiting," Monty said, as Jasper came through the open door. "For him."

Jasper gave them a feeble smile. 

"So," Monty swiveled to face the gathering.

Clarke folded her arms.

Lexa looked calm.

"I've found them. I have actual body signatures in a place called La Vale. Well. Well, it was called that a hundred years ago.”

"To the west," Lexa said. “We still call it that.”

"Yeah, the likeliest spot. Across the mountains. I’ve been focusing there. I have a picture of the Ark wreckage and have identified at least four people moving around." He showed the picture on the screen.

Clarke squinted. She didn't see anything.

"Monty," Raven said. "That's still not the good part."

"Do you have radio contact?" Clarke asked.

"Not that good. But we have fire." Monty grinned. "They made fire."

"There's fire, and heat. But they could be Grounders?” Jasper said.

"Yeah." Monty's face fell.

Clarke glanced at Lexa. "What clans are out there?"

Lexa shook her head. "Just rumors. Strange men with rocket ships. A fertile land beyond. Hidden stores of supplies in the city of bridges. But the snow keeps us away. There are things to attend to here. We look to the sea.“

"We have a good map," Monty said.

"And trackers. And a radio."

"You think we should go," Clarke said.

Monty glanced at Jasper. "Some of us."

"I can't stay here," Jasper said. "I can't pretend nothing happened."

Clarke nodded. 

"I don't know why we have to fucking do everything, but our people are out there," Monty said.

"Are you sure they're ours? And not our enemy?" Clarke asked.

"Maybe. It's hard to tell. There's so much radiation. So much. You know, this world is a nightmare," Monty said.

"Tell me about it," said Raven.

"I don't want to leave you all,” Clarke said.

Raven brushed away tears. "Yeah."

"Bellamy should be here."

"We had to choose," Monty said. "Bellamy, or you."

"You chose him," Clarke said.

Monty and Jasper exchanged glances. "We flipped a coin."

Lexa scoffed.

"Want me and Bellamy to duel at dawn instead?" Clarke asked.

"In my tribe…" Lexa mumbled.

"Just give us the green light, Clarke,” Monty said.

"You're still taking orders from me?"

Monty smiled. "Always."

Clarke tapped the table. "I'll inform the Council." 

It felt good to think of leaving again. That hollow, burned out part of her was still there. Only this time, she had a plan. She would survive. 

***

They gathered three mornings later at the fence. Abby had only put up token protest. She was hard to look at. They all were. 

Clarke longed for the Earth. Snow on her face, leaves in her hair. Lexa could give her that. Not this hunk of metal fallen from space.

Jasper was with them. Monty had said goodbye earlier, and had then closed himself into his alcove.

Clarke hugged Raven goodbye. "Promise me you'll take care of Bellamy and mom. Don't shut them out."

Raven squeezed her hard and didn't say anything.

Bellamy, too, chose a crushing embrace over words.

Octavia gave her the Roni.

"Finn's gun," Clarke said. She ran her thumb along the grip. He’d killed so many with it. She would think twice before shooting. She hoped.

"May it keep you safe."

Lincoln gave her his journal. "Light reading," he said. "Don't eat the bright green berries."

She kissed his cheek. 

Kane, too, gave her a gun.

"What is this, a wedding?" she joked, and then flushed when he gave her a knowing look.

"Appropriate," Lexa said.

They lifted their packs. Forty pounds each. Enough food for two months. Not enough blankets for winter. 

David jogged up. "Thanks for waiting."

"Are you sure, Miller?" Abby asked.

He nodded to Clarke. "She saved my son. I've got her back."

Bellamy clapped Jasper's shoulder. "And he's the best sharpshooter we have. They'll be fine."

Clarke wanted to hug everyone again. She wanted to breathe them in and beg for forgiveness. She wanted to go back in time. Put her in prison, let her draw on the walls. Keep her safe.

Instead she turned away, and took in the mountains before her. She stepped through the gate and kept walking.

"Those who have crossed with direct eyes, to death's other Kingdom, remember us—if at all—not as lost violent souls, but only as the hollow men," Clarke said.

Jasper joined in, beside her. “There are no eyes here in this valley of dying stars. In this hollow valley." Then, his swallow was audible.

Then Lexa's voice, cool and clear. "Between the desire and the spasm, between the potency and the existence, between the essence and the descent—"

"Falls the shadow," David finished.

The gate closed behind them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you guys so much for reading. I love this show, I love this fandom. Merry Christmas!


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